Downpours above town cause rock slides, send 2-foot wall of water through streets near golf course

BORREGO SPRINGS 
Dozens of homes in this desert town were damaged over the weekend after a heavy storm caused flooding and rock slides in the area, officials said Monday.

The rainfall came from a seasonal monsoon and Tropical Storm Ivo, which produced thunderstorms across the eastern and northern parts of San Diego County starting Sunday.

A few more thunderstorms hit East County on Monday and turned the weather humid west of the mountains, including at the coast, where there was virtually no onshore breeze.

Meteorologists don’t expect the humidity to be as bad today as the monsoon weakens. But they said the weather system will still have enough strength to generate scattered thunderstorms and brief yet heavy rain at times. Temperatures will rise to seasonal levels, or just above, along the coast, even though a low-pressure system will cause the marine layer to thicken, according to the National Weather Service.

Most of the damage in Borrego Springs happened in the De Anza Desert Country Club neighborhood, where the waterline reached as high as 2 feet above ground, sheriff’s Deputy Pat Morrissey said.

“There’s probably more than 40 homes damaged,” Morrissey said.

Particularly hard-hit were homes on Montezuma Drive and De Anza Drive, surrounding the 15th fairway of the club’s course, although debris littered much of the development. A small part of Lazy S Road was still under water Monday evening.

“There’s mud in many homes,” Morrissey said. Backyard swimming pools were also filled to the brim with muddy runoff after a torrential downpour Sunday over Indian Head Peak sent water flowing into the town, Morrissey said.

The storm flooded roadways and left mud and rocks littering the streets.

Montezuma Valley Road from Ranchita to Borrego Springs was shut down and will remain closed until further notice due to boulders in the roadway and the threat of more rock slides, authorities said. Sections of Borrego Valley Road and Borrego Springs Road were temporarily closed, but both roads had reopened by Monday afternoon.

Most of the homes in De Anza are unoccupied this time of year — August in Borrego can be brutally hot — but residents Jim Bennett and Cathy Gay were home Sunday on De Anza Drive. It had been raining much of the day, really hard in the afternoon.

A golf tournament had just ended on television about 3:30 p.m. when the couple heard a strange noise.

“We looked out, and there was a 2-foot wall of water charging into our house and into the windows,” Bennett said. “It was like a river was going around the house and across the road and into the fairway.”

Brick walls surrounding the backyard of the home and a neighbor’s home broke apart. Bennett’s patio furniture and much of his landscaping was washed away. He still hasn’t found a couple of chairs.

“It could have been much worse,” Bennett said. The windows didn’t break. Instead, a few inches of mud seeped into his house.